Despite recent close scrutiny in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the executives of Facebook took to the stage for their annual Facebook Developers Conference, F8, on 1st May 2018 as planned. Gathering in San Jose, California, they had plenty of big announcements to make in an effort to do some serious damage control. They gave the public just a little glimpse at what’s coming up for the year ahead.
During the conference, Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive, together with a number of other Facebook execs, revealed the plans that they are hoping to roll out in the not too distant future. Amongst other functionality, was a dating service via the platform. In addition to this, came the official launch of the Facebook standalone VR headset Oculus Go. As you may expect, the conversations on the floor were heavily centred on to better protect user privacy.
With so much going on at the conference, we thought we’d round up our Top 5 Takeaways from the Facebook Developers Conference…
1.Facebook dating
It really was only a matter of time before Facebook decided that they needed to take a look at the dating scene. But don’t all rush to sign up at once, as there has been no official launch date announced just yet. They do hope to start testing the feature in a couple of months’ time though so all in good time.
Facebook dating will live inside the current Facebook platform and will not be a separate app. Users will however be required to create a separate profile. Whilst this will be created via the existing profile, other users of the dating service will only be able to see the dating profile. It will have its own messaging service with some limitations in place – messages will be text only, with no photos or videos allowed. Perhaps most importantly, users will only be able to send one message to someone until they reply, minimising the harassment factor.
The hope is for the service to help build long-term relationships and let’s face it, if they can’t match us up with the amount of data they’re sitting on, who can?
2.Clear history function
Not yet out of the hot water they found themselves in as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has set about trying to show users just how important privacy is to them.
In an attempt to do this, they have announced the release of a handy Clear History tool. This will no doubt come as good news for most, but could be the start of some uncertain times for advertisers who have historically relied on the collection of user information that Facebook carried out to make sure that their ads were targeted to a much better audience. It remains to be seen what the overall effect of this tool will be on Facebook advertisers.
3.Oculus Go
As we’ve already touched upon, Facebook also announced the official launch of their first VR headset at F8. The Oculus Go will be available to purchase worldwide with a price tag of $199, and with it, Facebook are hoping to take VR mainstream! They acquired Oculus in 2014 as a means of making their way into the VR space so we were anticipating a move in this direction.
4.Group Video Chat for WhatsApp
Group video chat is a big plan for the coming months on the Facebook owned messaging app WhatsApp. They also hope to add stickers to the app in the very near future.
5.Makeover for Instagram
Another Facebook owned killer app, Instagram, will be getting a makeover! New features and updates were announced at F8 and video chat will be rolling out as soon as the next few weeks. Not only will this feature support group chats and one-on-one chats, but it will also allow users the option of minimising the chat video and working on other things on Instagram.
Apps like Spotify and GoPro will also benefit from the makeover, which will allow content sharing directly to Instagram stories. And finally, a redesigned Explore page, which will be organised by topic will also form part of the new look.
With all this to look forward to, users thinking of logging off the platform after the recent scandal may be tempted to stick around. Will you?
We’d love to hear your thoughts about these updates over on our Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.
